


A Time for Tears

by Slantedlight (BySlantedlight)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BySlantedlight/pseuds/Slantedlight





	A Time for Tears

He'd wanted to cry when Ann left. He'd hurt her. He didn't, because there was no point, he'd made his choice, he'd let her drive away and he was alone.

He'd almost cried for Benny, for his last moments of fear and panic, and for the sheer waste of it, of all the things Benny had fought against and won in his life, only to lose it all and lie dying in a pile of rubbish bags and old takeaway cartons.

He'd felt tears most hot in his eyes when Bodie had been stabbed, when he had to walk beside him up that grim hospital corridor, Bodie's own eyes wild with fever and the burning heat of knife-slice infection. The waste of _that_ life... 

He'd been so close, then, to crying, and they'd barely known each other really; it was before they'd ever touched, ever stood naked together, with the joy of it all pulling at them, binding them ever more tightly. 

And now there was nothing. 

Now it was all over, now he would never feel that life in Bodie again. 

He watched them as if from a distance, Cowley and Ruth and Jax and Michaels rushing forwards from the safety of the cars, checking pulses, calling for attention...

There was nothing he could do.

There was no point.

He knew that grey clouds scudded heavy above them all, that the tarmac was new and dark and black, and that it was hard, so hard. 

He felt vaguely the cold wind rise around him, heard the scuff of leaves across the ground, wondered if he'd look up and see them, scattered across the body. No, it was better not to look this time, not to look, to see, to watch. But...

_Bodie._

_There._

It was as though he was being pulled backwards, the force of a hundred thousand wasted lives sliding around and through him, insistent. Drawn backwards and away, the world becoming tunnelled around him, until all he could see was Bodie, bright-jacketed against the grim day.

Bodie.

Doyle watched him as he bent over one of the other agents - Williams, he thought, that's right it was Williams who'd... Saw the moment that Bodie stilled suddenly, and turned away and towards him. That look on his face, oh that look on his face...

He wanted to speak, wanted to reassure him, but the words wouldn't come. There were no words left. 

He watched as Bodie began to stand, saw every moment of it in slow motion, because surely he only had now, this was his last chance... The tunnel pulled, and he fought back against it because he wanted to see, one last time, the way the muscles in Bodie's thighs tightened, to remember the way they tightened around him , against his own as they moved in bed together, as Bodie moved under him and...

Remember, remember now ... remember Bodie's thighs beneath his own, remember laughing and coming up to kneel, straddling him, remember the look of his balls pulled tight against your own, of his hair and yours curling together, of his cock straining as yours was, wanting to be together , to be pressing and pushing and...

Remember it all, before it's too late, before you have to leave once and for all.

Bodie striding across the carpark towards him, as the cold wind blew around, as the clouds rushed overhead, and the darking world grew dimmer.

Bodie's face near his, his eyes... He could see every eyelash separately now, could watch them fall in a blink, rise again... Dark they were, against Bodie's skin, he'd stare at them as they lay in bed together, sleeping or not sleeping, breathing...

Bodie wouldn't understand, he couldn't, he... How could he stay, now? They were the heroes, they were supposed to protect , supposed to sweep in, to save the world before ridiculous drama turned to screaming tragedy and to make it through to the end. But what happened when they _came_ to the end? 

Bodie frowning down at him. His face...

Breathe. 

"What's wrong?" 

Bodie's voice that, clear over everyone else, over everything else...

"Doyle?"

Breathe. 

Blink.

"She's dead."

The world speeding up, because it was true, she was dead and nothing would bring her back. He said it to Bodie, because Bodie _would_ understand that he'd had enough, that he had to get out... Bodie knew him.

"Yeah." Bodie sighed. "Before she even hit the ground, probably."

"If I'd been faster..."

"If you'd been faster you would have hit Williams instead of her, and she would have pulled the pin and someone else would be dead. Alot of someones, me included."

"She's... She was only seventeen..."

"She made her choice, just like you did, and Popescu and the rest of his nasty little mates."

"Yeah..." And yet... "Someone should have been paying attention, seen the way she was going."

Bodie shrugged, because Bodie believed in looking after yourself. So - what if he was right? Stasi, young Stasi, had followed her own paths in life and they could have taken her anywhere, anywhere at all...

"Alright?"

They could have taken her to eighteen years old.

He blinked again, sniffed and remembered finally that he was still holding his gun. Bad thing to forget, that. "Yeah." He slid it into his holster, smooth as butter, as silk, as ice. "Is Williams going to be okay?"

"Mostly just shock, clean in and out."

"Right."

Bodie was watching him carefully still, and he let the world slow down again for long enough to look back at him, to feel the pull of Bodie's eyes, his life, his world. The girl was dead, but Bodie was still there after all. It would all happen over again when it happened, because people were what they were. He took another breath, deeper, let it out. 

Bodie gave him a nod, then. "Come on, let's get on with it, eh? Reports to write, beer to drink..." 

He threw his arm around Doyle's shoulder for a moment as they headed back to the car, bent his head low to mutter into his ear, gave Doyle's chest a couple of solid pats for good measure. Doyle breathed, and blinked and sniffed again, before shoving him off, and getting in a dig of his own, and then they were away, chasing and scuffling through the dead autumn leaves, nearly winter again, but it would be spring after that.

 

_October 2008_


End file.
